


If You See Light

by lesbianophelia



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - No Hunger Games, Childhood Trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Found Family, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Peeta Mellark, Outing, Past Child Abuse, Poverty, Useless Lesbians, food insecurity, the Seam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-10-24 05:52:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17698862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianophelia/pseuds/lesbianophelia
Summary: "And no one knows how to keep secrets 'round here, they tell everyone everything soon as they knowAnd then where is there left for poor sinners to go?"(If You See Light by The Mountain Goats)Peeta Mellark has nowhere to go.Katniss Everdeen has a habit of bringing home strays.





	1. wild sage growing in the weeds

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings:  
> \- homophobia  
> \- homelessness  
> \- food insecurity  
> \- disownment  
> \- past/referenced child abuse and the lasting trauma from it 
> 
> Do you think I could be representing any of these things better? I welcome the chance to learn. Message me on tumblr: @knittingbutch. I'll listen.

I’ve been in classes with Katniss Everdeen since we were little, but somehow, I feel like I’m seeing her today for the first time in years. It’s not that either of us ever left, we’ve just never spoken before. And not for lack of trying on my part. Even after I knew better, I would imagine what it might be like to try to make friends with Katniss Everdeen. She eats lunch with Madge Undersee, and while I don’t know Madge terribly well, it wouldn’t have been totally strange for me to set my tray at their table during lunch. 

 

Not that I ever did. And then, as we got older, it got harder and harder to imagine that anything I said would be worth anything to someone like Katniss. So much stronger and braver than me. And engaged, anyway. Same as I was. 

 

Only, she got to choose her fiance. Gale Hawthorne, two or three years older than her -- I forget which -- who was both big and intimidating enough that no one gave him  _ or  _ the underclassman he hung around any shit for it. I had no say in whether I wanted to spend any time around Whitley Donner, who sits across from me now in class just like he always has. 

 

“If things are the way they always have been,” he said a full four minutes ago, “It’s because they work that way.” 

 

He’s been waiting, trying hard to get a word in edgewise after, of all the people in the class, Katniss Everdeen raised her hand. As she speaks -- about the world before the Dark, about the waste, about the luxury, I wonder if I’ve ever heard this much from her before. Maybe it’s a flash of the girl in the red plaid dress I somehow remember from the first day of school, but she’s older now, more jaded, when she says, 

 

“I guess when you can do anything with the flip of a switch or the click of a button, you have to try to find something to make into a problem to try to solve. Can you imagine? Caring about something as stupid as the gender someone else loved?” 

 

It’s the way she looks at me when she says it. Something in her eyes like what was there back when Clara could meet mine. Like she sees something in me that even I can’t figure out. And then -- just as I’m imagining I might ever be brave enough to leave the room and hide in the hallway until it’s all over, the bell rings. 

 

The room empties like a balloon that’s been untied instead of popped, and I stare down at my textbook even though I’m far from comprehending the words on the page. They’ll all be gone, soon, and then I can leave in peace, maybe without  _ dykewhorebitchslut  _ following me. 

 

But that’s not what happens. 

 

“Hey.” 

 

We may never have directly spoken until this morning, when she caught me washing up in the restroom and said “Good morning,” while she scrubbed her hands, but I know who it is before I even lift my head.  _ Good morning  _ was all she said -- just that, and then she dried her hands off on her shirt and left. But it was the first thing she’s ever said right to me, and the first thing  _ anyone  _ has said directly to me in the last two days that didn’t involve an insult of some sort. 

 

“Hey,” I return, my voice croaky from disuse. I clear my throat, but I don’t have to try again. 

 

“You’re strong, right?” Katniss asks, leaning with her hip against the desk in front of mine. The light from the window streams in around her, hazy and beautiful, and she just watches, waiting for an answer. 

 

_ You’re strong, right?  _ Am I? Probably not. But somehow, I think Katniss might not ask questions she doesn’t know the answer to. And besides, she’s looking at me -- right at me, like there’s anything worth seeing -- 

 

“What do you need?”    
  


  
  


Firewood. She needs firewood. She tells me, as if it’s news, maybe, that it’s getting colder. And then she says that she’ll cook me dinner if I help her. My stomach answers for me with a pang. Dinner. Cooked by the best huntress in all of District Twelve. Meat -- fresh meat, and lots of it -- is implicit in the offer. So I say yes.

 

Just as she suggested, I meet her in fifteen minutes at the meadow near the Seam. I don’t know how early I am, I just headed straight that way. Katniss shows up with a bag on her hip and gives me a nod as she approaches. The wood is already cut, and she’ll need to split the logs later, but that part is easy. I carry more than is probably smart, and she watches me carefully. I try to shake the feeling that she’s sizing me up, but I guess it would be hard for her not to. 

 

The Cartwrights allowed me to spend the night with them when it first happened. Just one night, though. And even that was because Delly begged them to -- she cried, even. And I overheard a little bit of the murmuring conversation between her parents while she iced the ugly welt on my face and I tried to squirm away. Mr. Cartwright thought that they ought to speak to Mom before they made any decisions. 

 

And they did. Mr. Cartwright decided the same thing as my parents. That no dyke would live in their house. And especially not when there’s  _ Delly  _ to think of, so impressionable and sweet. What if I did something? What if I couldn’t control myself? 

 

Delly was watching me, stricken. No doubt waiting for me to argue, to defend myself, but there was no use and I knew it. And what could Delly say, when she had no idea? She tried to say that my mother must have been confused, but I had tried that lie, too, and I know it gets you nowhere. Not once they’ve made up your mind.    
  


Anyway, Katniss doesn’t ask anyone permission before she tugs the door to her building open.  Mom always talked about how expensive the apartment buildings in the Seam would have been before the Dark. Everything electronic and automated, so it’s almost all entirely useless now, and has been since before anyone I know was born. 

 

I follow Katniss up a nearly pitch-black stairwell with an armful of split logs. Each floor had doors, once, I think. But they’ve all been ripped off the hinges completely to let what little lights comes from the hallways in. There must have been lights once, too.  Katniss climbs and I follow, follow, follow, up into the darkness, until finally she says, “This one,” and we get out of the stairwell. 

 

I stumble into the meager light that comes from the window at the end of the hall, my feet carrying me to it before I can help myself. 

 

I’ve never been in a Seam building before. Never seen the District from this high up. The apartment above the bakery was only a second-story building. This must have been at least four flights of stairs. I can see the bakery from here, but have to fill in the rest of the buildings in my mind. If that one in the center is the Justice Building, we must be -- my parents must be the one two doors down from that. That puts the Cartwrights right beside us, and the Donners on the other side of them. Not that it matters. 

 

Katniss clears her throat, clearly gearing up to say something, but she goes quiet when I turn around and come to stand near her again. 

 

“I’m sorry,” I say in the silence. “I didn’t mean to slow you down. You must need this.” I nod down towards the firewood in my hands.   
  
“It’s fine. Are you okay?”    
  
She shakes her head before I can scrape up a decent answer. 

 

“I mean -- are you ready to come in?” she amends. 

 

There’s plenty of light in Katniss’s place. One wall is made up completely of windows, and the patched window dressings are gathered up at the sides to give us a full view of the District, even better than from the hallway. No wonder she thought I was so stupid for rushing to the end like that. She kneels to untie her boots, and I toe my own pair off, because my feet are slightly less filthy than the flats I was wearing when it all happened. 

 

  
“I’m home, Duck,” she calls into the warm apartment, and then sets her shoes down and reaches to take mine. “You start on your homework yet?”   
  
A sighing groan from just inside. _Duck_ must be her sister, Primrose.   
  
“That’s not a yes,” Katniss says, a teasing lilt to her voice. 

 

At Katniss’s nod, I inch out of the entryway. Primrose is in the living room, sitting on a palate just in front of a massive fireplace. She’s got one hand rested on the back of a small dog that perks up instantly at the sight of me, alert like it might start barking at any minute. 

 

“Who’s this?” asks Primrose, a smile I can’t read curving her lips as she glances between me and her sister. “Did you--?”   
  
“Peeta,” Katniss interrupts. “This is Prim, my baby sister. She should be doing her homework.”   
  
“She _is_ doing her homework,” Primrose -- _Prim_ \-- protests. 

 

“Peeta is going to have dinner with us,” Katniss says. “Is Pyra coming?”   
  
Prim shakes her head, still studying me the same way she was when she was trying to figure out who I was. I swallow hard, glancing over at Katniss.   
  
“Not tonight. Are you going to offer Peeta a pair of pants or just let her freeze in that dress?”   
  


“Oh! I’m fine!” I say. “I’m just--”   
  
“Come with me.” 

  
  


Katniss leads me to what must be her bedroom and I force myself to accept the pair of trousers she hands me. Only, then she’s finding a shirt, too, and underthings, and my face is burning so badly just thinking about her knowing that I  _ need  _ these. 

 

“I’m going to run you a bath.”   
  
I stare. She must know that I can’t say no. Not filthy as I am. Am I supposed to protest? Act demure and just braid my hair instead? She nods resolutely and heads for the restroom, and I have nothing to do but to follow. 

  
She turns on the water and heads for the kitchen to put on a pot of water. I stay where I am, perched on the edge of the porcelain tub and letting it leach the warmth out of my thighs. The stockings I was wearing ripped that first night when I tried climbing up into a tree. 

  
“Just -- um, knock whenever you need your tub back--” I try to say as she sticks her hand into the water, trying to decide if the temperature is right.   
  
“No,” she says, and then, just a little softer, she adds -- “Dinner will be a while anyway. Take as long as you need.”    
  
With that, she lights a candle on the sink and leaves.   
  
My hands shake as I lift off my dress. She was right about my needing a new one. This one is filthy. I wonder, if I were to try to clean it with the bathwater, if I could have it dry enough before I have to give her things back tonight. Having a clean dress for school on Monday would be nice, but it’s too cold out to even consider trying to sleep in something wet tonight. 

 

_ Monday _ . As I sink into the tub, it’s like I can feel any fight left leak out of me. I have to find somewhere to sleep tonight. And tomorrow night. And then there’s  _ food _ . I slide further down into the tub, my hair fanning out around me, and let the water cover my face. That way, I can focus on breathing through my nose rather than on the way my bottom lip hasn’t stopped trembling. 

 

. . .   
  
  
Whatever it was that happened with Clara, it started slowly. Last winter. I would have been sixteen. Really too young to be at the New Year’s party at the Donner’s house, but there anyway, because Mom and Mrs. Donner had really expected my courtship with Whitley to start in the fall, just after my birthday. I remember Whitley tugging me against him so closely that I was practically on his lap as he plastered kisses against my throat, neck, cheeks. He wasn’t just drunk, but completely wasted, and I thought it might be just as well that none of his kisses met their mark. 

 

Across from us sat Clara and my brother, Rye. I could see them just fine across the firepit. Could see the way my brother’s hand curled around her thigh, much more possessive than it was affectionate. I remember shivering at the feeling of the wetness of Whitley’s drunk kisses just behind my ear, and Clara meeting my eyes, raising her perfect blonde brows just slightly, as if to say,   
  
_What can you do_?   
  
I tugged the corner of my mouth over towards my left ear, tilting my head in a way that served mostly as acknowledgement for Clara but that also seemed to encourage Whitley, who was starting to get bored.   
  
_I know_. That was what I was trying to tell her. Because I did know, and because now this was something that we could bond over. 

 

Whitley sighed, finally satisfied and informed me that I was,  _ the hottest fucking thing at this party _ , and I just barely managed to return Clara’s smile as he told me about how, if he thought we could get away unnoticed, he’d have liked to get me aloe. 

  
  


. . .   
  
“Well Suzanna Eaton says--”   
  
“I don’t care what Suzanna Eaton says,” I hear Katniss interrupt. “Why are you talking to Suzanna Eaton anyway?”   
  
“I _wasn’t_. But I heard her when I was walking to History,” Prim defends. “Suzanna Eaton says that the Cartwrights--”   
  
“Okay, so you weren’t gossiping, you were just _listening_ to the gossip,” Katniss says, and though she sounds like she’s teasing, I think she might seriously be trying to get her sister to be quiet. “Duck, it’s none of our business.”   
  
“No, _listen_ ,” says Prim. “So the Donners, the older boy. What’s his name?”   
  
“I can’t help you there,” Katniss says. “You wanna set the table?”   
  
I hesitate by the doorway. The bathwater went cold a while ago, but I knew that the sooner I left the safety of their bathroom, the sooner I have to eat and leave. 

 

“So, they were engaged. I can’t remember his name. You know the one, though? Kinda tall. Trying to grow a mustache,” Prim continues. “It looks really bad, though. He’s, like-- I can’t remember his name. But you know him.”   
  
“Whitley,” I supply as I join them in the kitchen, and Prim looks a little startled. I offer her what I hope passes as a reassuring smile, but by now, the muscles in my face feel like they’re creaking when I try. “That’s his name. What about him?”   
  
They exchange a glance.   
  
“Prim was just--”   
  
“It’s nothing,” Prirm says quickly.   
  
“No,” I say. “The mustache is awful. What about him?” 

  
Prim barks out a laugh. “It’s _so_ bad,” she says. “Worse than a normal mustache. I don’t know how he thinks it’s--”   
  
“Prim,” Katniss says, like she’s warning. “We have a guest.”   
  
A guest. I swallow. “Can I help with dinner?” I ask.   
  
She shakes her head. “We’re about ready. Everything fits all right?”   
  
I don’t know how she’s fussing when I’m already wearing it all. “Yes,” I say. “I wondered if I might be able to wash my dress. Just--”   
  
“Throw it in the pile,” says Prim. “Tomorrow is laundry day.”   
  
“Duck,” Katniss says softly.   
  
“Oh, I meant -- for tonight,” I say lamely.   
  
“I’ll bring the tub out after dinner,” says Katniss. “Sit down.”   
  
  


Dinner with the Everdeen girls isn’t either particularly uncomfortable or particularly pleasant. Katniss keeps circling back around to talk about Prim’s schooling, and it’s more than clear that Prim is frustrated with this. But it isn’t hard to stay focused on the food in front of me. Not when there’s plenty of it, and not when Katniss keeps scooping more of the stew into my bowl as soon as I make a dent in it. 

 

“You’re almost eighteen,” Prim finally mutters. “They won’t check up on my grades once you have custody.”   
  
“Six months,” Katniss says, pointing her spoon at her sister. “You just didn’t make me nag you about it before because you weren’t so distracted with your girlfriend.”   
  
I freeze. _Girlfriend_. I glance over at Prim, holding my breath while I wait for her to defend herself. To say that of course she doesn’t have a girlfriend. To ask who sold her out. To cry. Something, anything. To finish her story from earlier, and tell her that actually, there’s only one dyke at the table, and it’s me. 

 

But Prim just turns bright red and says, “She hasn’t said girlfriend yet.”   
  
Katniss snorts. “Okay. All right,” she says. “So it’s not official yet.”   
  
Prim shifts a little in her seat. “I think -- she’s waiting for me to say it. It’s just -- been so much, lately. For her, I mean. With her name, and . . . I don’t want it to be too much.”   
  
“All right, all right,” she says. “Not your girlfriend yet.”   
  
_Yet._ Prim laughs, soft and quiet. “But almost.”   
  
Katniss reaches for the serving spoon, and I hold my hand up to stop her. “Oh, please, no more,” I say. “I’m so full.”   
  
_Full_. It’s startling to realize that that’s true. That I am full to the point of discomfort after, what, a bowl and a half, maybe two bowls, of Katniss’s cooking. That she was willing to give me that much and more besides. 

 

“I told you,” Prim gloats. “You’re fussy.”   
  
I’m trying to figure out how they’ll ask me to leave. How long I have before Katniss tells me that it’s getting late, and if I have more of a chance of being invited back if I’m the one to come up with the idea.   
  
Katniss protests, but allows me to help Prim finish up the dishes. When I come back for my dress, I see it’s already been put in the laundry basket. 

 

“Peeta. Come here,” Katniss says when I take a step towards it, and her voice is a little low. Like she’s being secretive.   
  
“I was just-- my dress is --”   
  
“Come with me,” Katniss repeats. I don’t have any choice but to follow her. I think maybe I never do. 

 

She brings me to the palate Prim had been sitting on earlier. The one by the fireplace in the living room. Only, now it’s got a pillow on it. And an old plaid blanket, and yet another dog, this one bigger than the last, that she kneels in front of to coax off of the bed. 

 

“We can try to train them to stay off, from now on,” she says, standing. “If -- if you want.”   
  
It takes a moment for the enormity of what she’s saying to hit me. This palate. Mine? For me to sleep on? For me to decide whether or not her dogs get to lay on it? “I --” I stammer. “But-- I--”   
  
“If you need to be somewhere else, that’s fine,” Katniss says, eyes on her feet. “I just thought--”  
  
“No!” I hear myself cry before I really realize what I’m doing. “No. I don’t. I don’t -- have anywhere to go.”   
  
It’s the first time I’ve admitted it. There’s that stupid trembling in my lower lip again. 

 

“I -- you did this for me?”   
  
“You need a bed,” Katniss says. “We can sign up for one on Monday. If -- you think you’ll be here long enough to want one.”   
  
“I-- but . .  . I don’t--” I stammer. 

  
“Think about it,” she commands. “Take the night, at least.” 

  
  


. . .   
  
  
After New Year’s, things were different. Clara found more excuses to be near me, laughed more at my jokes. In the Spring, she asked me to help her clear out her bedroom in her parent’s apartment above the sweetshop, and every week on Wednesdays she would tug me up the stairs and laugh when her mother told us not to take too long.   
  
A summer Toasting. Late enough that it would be nice and cool outside for the cake and for dancing. She told me that there had to be dancing, that she couldn’t get married without dancing, and I tried to explain about Rye getting drunk and assaulting the only merchant fiddle player, but she shook her head so fast her blonde hair bounced and she said, “Peeta, I need to _dance_ ,” and she was so earnest that I had no choice but to believe her.   
  
. . .   
  
I wake with three dogs on the palate with me, and Katniss, crouched a couple feet away from the end of the bed, speaking softly to them to try to coax them away from me.   
  
“Fuck, come on,” she hisses. 

 

“ ‘s’all right,” I hear myself slur, working to push myself up into a sitting position. “You need me to get out? I can go.”   
  
“ _What_?” she asks, forgetting she was being quiet and landing flat on her ass. “No. Why?”   
  
“It’s morning,” I return. “I can--”   
  
“You’re not going anywhere,” she says fiercely. And then hesitates. “It’s four in the morning. And snowing. And four in the morning,” she says again. “I just wanted to get these fucking dogs off of you,” she’s back to whispering, maybe afraid to wake her sister.   
  
“They’re okay,” I say. “What are you up so early for?”   
  
“I’m going out,” she says. “Here. You go sleep in that room,” she nods towards the bedroom she must just have come out of. “There’s a real bed. No dogs allowed. I’ll be back in later.”  
  
“You don’t have to--” I protest, and maybe it’s because I’m still half asleep, but she shoots me a sharp look that convinces me to stumble up to my feet and grab the pillow she gave me last night.   
  
“I’m going hunting,” she informs me. And then she studies me for a moment, really studies me, and I shift around on my feet because I hate it. “You should be here when I get back,” she says. And then she leaves. 

  
  


.   
  
I get maybe another hour worth of sleep in Katniss’s bed. It smells like the same soap that I used last night, but something else, too, something more grounded. I can’t shake the thought of being in Katniss’s bed, in Katniss’s room in her house, and her not counting down the minutes until I leave. 

 

I have biscuits in the oven by the time she gets back. It’s just after noon, and she has Gale Hawthorne with her and two big bags between them. Gale waits for her to come in first -- a gentleman, at least -- and then leans back against the door and takes off his knit cap, shaking the snow from his long hair.   
  
Katniss strips off her jacket, first, and then peels off her soaked sweater and the flannel under it, everything hitting the floor wetly. Gale is going through a similar process, but I’m not watching him as Katniss stands barely inside of the apartment in just a tank top.   
  
“Smells good in here,” Gale says. “I thought Prim was at--”   
  
Katniss’s eyes land on me, finally, and I freeze. Was I supposed to leave? Or to stay hidden in her room until Gale left? I didn’t know she was bringing anyone home, and certainly not her fiance.   
  
“Who’s the townie?” asks Gale when I take too long to decide on where I should go.   
  
Fuck. Before I can come up with a reasonable explanation, Katniss says,   
  
“Clearly she’s not a townie if she’s here.”   
  
Gale’s eyes narrow a little ashe thinks this over.   
  
“Peeta, this is Gale,” says Katniss, hauling her bag up from the floor onto her hip. “He’s not such an asshole once you get to know him.”   
  
“Oh, I’m an asshole now?” he asks.   
  
What must it look like to him? Me -- here, in his fiance’s house, wearing her clothes. “Ah,” I begin. 

 

“An asshole with traps twice as good as yours.”   
  
They’re heading for the kitchen. “I just-- I’m almost done. If you want--”   
  
“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Katniss. “It’s big enough.”   
  


. . . 

  
  


“What’s with the merchant?” one of Gale’s siblings asks when they arrive.   
  
“I should--”   
  
“Don’t,” Katniss interrupts. She looks -- angry, almost. Frustrated, certainly. “This is Peeta. She’s . . .”   
  
It hangs in the air between us for a long moment. Prim, hand laced tightly with a silent, statuesque girl, rolls her eyes and says,   
  
“She’s here, isn’t she?”   
  
“I should go,” I finally finish.   
  
“Peeta--”   
  
  
I’m not sure how long I’m on the fire escape before someone joins me. I’m surprised to glance over and see that it’s not Katniss or Primrose, but it’s Gale Hawthorne of all people. I’m expecting something about how I should leave his family alone -- how I shouldn’t be here, how I shouldn’t have come in the first place. 

  
But he doesn’t say anything. He just sits beside me, eyes forward, jaw set. And then he sets a bowl of roasted chestnuts between us.   
  
  
  



	2. i still feel the bruise

  
  


I wake with the welcome if not slightly stifling warmth of three dogs wrapped around me. One behind my legs, nestled against the backs of my knees, one at my feet, and the smallest of the three curled by my chest. When I lift my head to look at them, it cocks its head back and I smile, scratching behind its ear. I always wanted a dog or a cat when I was a child. The closest we got were the pigs out back, and I learned my lesson about getting attached to them fairly young. 

  
I stayed out on the porch for hours last night. Long after the guests had left and the Everdeen girls had gone to bed. I was cold down to my very bones again, but as always, have no one to blame for it by myself. The small dog sets its head back down against the palate and I sigh. Katniss was concerned that the bed -- mostly wooden planks and old sheets, to be fair -- wouldn’t be comfortable enough. I can’t remember the last time I’ve slept so well. There’s no light to be found from the windows, so I lay my head down as well.   
  
  
When I next wake, all but the smallest of the dogs have left their post on my bed. I can hear shuffling in the kitchen -- whispers and laughter. It must be Katniss and Prim. I sit up, ignoring the dog’s pointed stretch into the space I’m no longer occupying, and try to see if I can make out anything they’re saying.   
  
“I told you she’d be awake,” says Prim, smug, as she enters the living room. “Do you want to come to the hob with us?”   
  
The hob. I blink. I think I’ve been once or twice, when I was very young, with my father. My mother so hated it when he would shop there, let alone that he brought me. “Um,” I begin. 

 

“You don’t have to,” says Katniss, and there’s something in her eyes when she cuts them over towards her sister. “We should let her wake up before we start bothering her, right, Duck?” she asks. “Good morning, Peeta.”   
  
“I’m awake,” I defend, lest they think I’m lazy. I pull my hair in front of my shoulder and start to braid it. “I -- I’m awake.”   
  
“You can help us carry stuff,” Prim continues. 

 

 _You’re strong, right?_ That’s what Katniss said. “Yeah,” I say. “All right.”   
  
Prim smiles brightly. “Katniss--”   
  
“I heard,” Katniss interrupts, shooting me what looks like an apologetic smile. “Peeta, breakfast is almost ready, but you’ve got enough time to get dressed if you’d like.”   
  
My panic must show on my face. I have no idea where she put my dress. She claimed she would put the washing tub out after dinner, but I spent the night on the fire escape.   
  
“Wear anything of mine,” Katniss says. “You remember where my dresser is, right?”   
  
“I can just-- wear this,” I say, though I had tried to change back into my dress early yesterday afternoon and Prim was right to fuss that I might freeze in it. 

 

I’m not at all prepared for her exasperated, _“Peeta_.”   
  
“I’ll help you!” Prim interjects, bubbly, and I think she might be able to tell, somehow, that my thighs feel numb. “Come with me.”   
  
“You just want an excuse to go through my clothes,” Katniss grouses, though she seems happier, now. “Breakfast in ten.”   
  
Prim mock-salutes and offers me a hand. I’m surprised by her strength when she manages to help me up to my feet. 

  
“It’s better not to argue with her,” Prim informs me as she begins to rifle through Katniss’s dresser drawer. “She gets flustered when people don’t let her take care of them.”   
  
“She doesn’t have to take care of me,” I defend, though I know it’s incredibly stupid. Where else would I possibly go if the Everdeen girls believed me?   
  
“Yeah, good luck telling her that,” says Prim. She hands me a flannel and drops to a crouch, pulling open the bottom drawer. “You shoulda heard her lay into the Hawthornes last night.”   
  
My grip on the plaid shirt tightens. “She did?” I ask tightly. “Why?”   
  
Prim holds a pair of blue jeans up, obviously trying to gauge if they would fit me.   
  
“I don’t--”   
  
“She’s just like that,” says Prim, and I can tell by the way she surveys me that she was under the impression Katniss and I were at least already friends. “Try these on,” she says, passing me a pair of corduroy pants. “If they don’t fit, the cotton ones should. They’ll just be less warm.”   
  
She leaves the room at that. The pants fit all right -- a little bit too tight and a solid inch or two too short. Strangely enough, a thrill goes through me at being able to wear them at all. Even during the worst of the snowstorms I can remember, my mother -- and most, if not all of the other mothers in the Merchant Quarter -- would insist on just wearing a couple of pairs of tights underneath a dress.   
  
It would be funny if I weren’t so lost. Here I am now, wearing pants two days in a row. Would my mother even recognize me?   
  
Prim is the one to present me with a pair of socks long enough to make up for the exposed parts at the bottom of my shins. They’re wool. Handmade, I think, but probably years ago. They’ve been mended with different colored yarn every time they’ve had a hole, it looks like. 

 

“She’ll need better shoes,” Prim muses aloud to Katniss, who nods solemnly. I don’t like the feeling that she’s writing a list in her head.   
  
“Peeta, do you have your tesserae?” asks Katniss as she plates what I think -- judging by the way my mouth waters -- are fresh eggs.   
  
I open and close my mouth twice before I decide to be honest. “No.”   
  
She hums. 

 

“My mother takes it, at the beginning of the month--” I start to ramble, and Katniss just says,   
  
“Prim, will you grab the box?”   
  
“No!” I protest. “Don’t use hers on me. I’ll just -- next month isn’t too far. I can just--”   
  
Prim laughs, obviously actually amused, and darts towards Katniss’s room again.   
  
“I’m not using my sister’s rations on you,” Katniss assures me, softly. She looks a little amused, too, though she’s careful not to laugh at me. She passes me the plate, completely ignoring my thanks and asking if I’ve ever shopped with tesserae before. 

 

I shake my head, focused instead on the two pieces of toast that wait on my plate. My stomach rumbles. How long has it been since I’ve had fresh bread? Or any bread at all? Prim returns before I can tuck into the meal, setting a simple wooden box in front of me. The wood hasn’t been finished, but it looks like it would be smooth to the touch.   
  
“Open it,” she prods, and Katniss bites her lips together when I glance at her in confirmation.  
  
The lid lifts off, revealing more tesserae than I’ve ever seen in one place before. The tiny wooden tablets are stacked neatly, at least nine rows deep and in three rows of ten I try doing the math in my head, but at four tokens a month for reach of them, this would be more than a full years supply, if they somehow never spent anything that they recieved.   
  
“How--?” I start, and look between the girls. The younger looks very amused, but the older looks -- proud. “Did you make these?” I whisper. I always wondered, when I would see Delly’s, how hard they might be to reproduce.   
  
Katniss barks out a laugh. “No,” she says. “They’re real.”   
  
“They’ve got these little chips inside,” Prim explains, sliding into the seat next to me, where Katniss sets another plate down. “So people couldn’t make their own.”   
  
I pick one up, gingerly, and examine it. The seal of panem is tiny, less than an inch tall, but perfect. “Then how?” I ask again.   
  
Katniss bites her bottom lip, but she can’t help her smile. I know enough about how the Tesserae works in theory. Every citizen is allotted their rations monthly, and what they do with it is up to them. It isn’t enough for anyone to get by without work of some sort to go with it, but one tablet a week covers some basic necessities.   
  
The Tesserae goes much, much further on clothing or other goods than it does on food. I knew this, but Katniss tells me anyway.   
  
“And, you know,” she continues, sounding nearly bashful. “There aren’t many hunters left around here. So since Gale and I have more than we strictly need to feed our families we barter. It serves us pretty well.”   
  
“Clearly,” I say, quietly. “Impressive.”   
  
Katniss beams at the praise. “We’ll get you some warm clothes,” she continues. “I always think that you Merchant girls look like you’re seconds from freezing to death when we get a good storm.”   
  
“We are.” The joke is weak, but earns me a laugh from both the Everdeen girls. “I’m all right, though. I’m -- If you’re all right with it, I’d rather stay here.”   
  
Katniss shoots Prim a look that must mean she suspected this.   
  
“Two sizes larger on the pants, then?” she asks, glancing at my legs.   
  
“I don’t--” I try to protest, and she just holds a hand up to stop me. 

 

“Relax,” she says. “We’ve got it handled.”   
  
. . . 

 

It’s easy enough to settle into a routine in the Everdeen apartment. Katniss is a little stricter about meal times than I had really expected, and while she never forces me to eat, she doesn’t hide her displeasure when I admit to not being hungry or try to excuse myself when we’re finished cooking. One thing I’m surprised by, though it makes sense now that I think about it, is just how often Gale Hawthorne is around. I’ve joked before, about him being her shadow, but that seems more and more true every night.   
  
At first I think he might be keeping an eye on me. News travels fast around District Twelve -- especially about the sort of thing I did -- and no matter how much I suspect my brother would want to keep Clara’s name out of everyone’s mouth for his own sake, there was no hiding the black eye he gave me. Even now, it’s faded, but I see Katniss looking at the yellowish greenish tint that remains when she thinks I can’t see it. Not that I have any intention of trying anything with Katniss.   
  
Trying anything. As if she’d ever go for someone like me. Even if there wasn’t the issue of Katniss Everdeen being so entirely out of my league, I’m not sure she’s ever even considered what it might be like to be attracted to a woman. As far as I can tell, she and Gale have been together for years. She probably never had to think about it. No one ever asked her to. Which is probably better for her, anyway.   
  
Only, Gale didn’t eye me with that same suspicion my brother did even before he found out. It was something different with him. Something almost friendly. Something that I don’t -- can’t -- trust. He helped the girls carry home what ended up being even more clothes than I earned when I lived on top of the bakery on Sunday evening. Flannels and jeans and longjohns and a  thick, patched denim jacket that’s unlike anything I’ve ever owned before. The elbows are reinforced with a flannel fabric, and there’s a wool hood I can pull up when I need it. The zipper is sturdy and takes a little jerking to make budge. I love it more than anything I’ve ever owned.   
  
Katniss, of course, won’t let me thank her. 

. . . 

 

I could recognize her from clear across the district. She always wears her red hair around her head like a crown. Even from thirty feet behind her, I can remember how soft it was, when she’d let me braid it. When she’d let it float down around her -- around us -- all loose and soft, and tickle against my skin.  
  
“Clara.”   
  
I hate myself for the affection that still floods my voice at her name, even when it’s just as an exhale. It isn’t enough to make her turn around, so I walk faster, my last classes of the day forgotten. I don’t mind skipping History. I never have. Not for her.   
  
“Clara,” I say again, but she doesn’t turn until my hand lands on her bony elbow. What did she think, when I never met her on Thursday? Did my brother lay his hands on her, too? It’s not the first time I’ve worried about it, but when she finally does turn to face me, I know it’s the last. She’s all porcelain skin and green eyes. No bruise to match any of mine.   
  
Her name escapes me on an exhale again. I watch, desperate, as those familiar eyes flick over me. I hadn’t expected for her to take me in her arms, or anything -- not in public, never in public -- but there’s something else. 

 

“What are you doing here?” she hisses.   
  
I flinch. “I saw -- you were by the school. Thought maybe you wanted to--”   
  
“I was at the courthouse,” she corrects coolly.   
  
“Clara. I needed --” I choke. “I wanted to talk to you. I needed--”  
  
Her hand lands on my arm, and I melt at the touch, but then she’s just pushing me, guiding me away from the path, into the alley behind the buildings. 

  
“Talk to me about _what_?” she hisses. “Do you really think it’s a good idea? Us being seen together? Especially when you like -- like -- a Seam Dyke.”   
  
I recoil at the word. But she’s right, anyway. I do. I am, I guess.   
  
“No one will see us,” I try to assure her, though I can’t promise that. “I’ll be quiet,” I amend.   
  
She looks unimpressed, but she isn’t leaving, so I continue. 

 

“Do you know how Rye found out? Because --” my voice cracks. There’s something stupid and hopeful shaking it. “Because I never said anything. I swear. I’d never--”   
  
“I told him,” Clara interrupts, though that can’t possibly be right. I shake my head, like that might clear it. But she’s still standing in front of me, looking nearly uninterested. “I told him everything.”   
  
“ _Clara_.” It’s a sigh again. I step towards her, drawn somehow by the need, still, to comfort her. “Was he angry?” I ask, and steps away. My black eye has mostly faded. I wonder if she can see it, still. “Did he hurt you?”   
  
She swallows. I can see her posture tighten. Like she has to draw herself up. “Of course he didn’t hurt me,” she says, sounding more proper than I’ve ever heard her. “Ryan was glad I was honest with him,” she says. “And then he excused himself.” Her eyes linger on my left one for a moment too long before she says, “That’s all I know. I should go.”   
  
“No!” I protest. “Why did you tell him?” I must be raising my voice to be heard over the rushing in my ears. She shoots me a wild-eyed look, pleading for me to be quiet. “Did someone else know? Who--?”   
  
“No one else knew,” she interrupts sharply. “Fuck’s sake, Peeta. That was the problem.”   
  
“The problem?” I whisper back, and her lips purse.   
  
“You were _mine_ ,” she says, and I shiver at the word in spite of myself. In spite of it being past tense. “Do you think we’d ever have stopped, if Ryan didn’t know?”   
  
“I didn’t know you wanted to stop,” I croak. “I thought -- I thought we had until the summer.”   
  
She turns to leave. I touch her arm again.   
  
“Clara,” I say again, pleading. “You didn’t tell me you didn’t want me to -- I would have-- If you’d have said--”   
  
“ _Stop_ ,” she snaps. “You’re making a scene.”   
  
I take a deep breath. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. I just-- I would have stopped. You didn’t have to tell them. They-- my mother . . . and Rye. It’s not safe for you to--”   
  
“He’s my husband.”   
  
“Fiance,” I correct automatically, as she has a thousand times, and Clara’s head tilts to the side. 

 

“Ryan is my husband,” she repeats slowly. As if I’m very stupid.   
  
Oh.   
  
Because I _am_ very stupid.   
  
“You toasted with him.”   
  
“The night I told him,” she says. “As soon as he got home.”   
  
“As soon as he got back from beating me for it,” I say robotically, and she at least, at last, flinches at this. 

 

“What we were doing was wrong. You know that, Peeta.”   
  
“You told me you didn’t love him. You said he never--”   
  
“Not because you’re his sister,” she snaps. “Don’t be dim. You _know_ why it was wrong.”   
  
I can hear Katniss’s voice in my head, from Friday. _Can you imagine?_ She’s saying, affronted. _Caring about something as stupid as the gender someone else loved?_ _  
_ _  
_ I can’t imagine what it would be like if anyone _didn’t_ care. _  
__  
_ “You didn’t tell them it was your idea.”   
  
It’s an accusation, but it’s soft. Breathless. 

 

“You were the one who--”   
  
“I should go.” _  
__  
_ “You told them I started it. Clara.” My voice is louder, now. “You didn’t, did you?”   
  
“I don’t see why it matters who started it,” she says shortly. “I’m not the one who took it too far.”   
  
“Clara,” I try again, but she’s already turned on her heel. I recognize the envelope she’s clutching, now. It must house a marriage license. “Clara,” I say again as we round the Justice Building. Too loud. Louder than she could ever forgive me for. “Wait! I don’t--”   
  
She whips around, eyes wild. “Leave me _alone_ ,” she says.   
  
“But -- I just--”   
  
“Listen to me, right now,” she says, with all the affection she may feel for something she’s scraped off of the bottom of her shoe. “I’m fucking married. I’m sure Ryan would love to hear about you chasing me through the District when I’ve already told you to _leave me the fuck alone_.”   
  
I’ve never once heard her voice like that before. “I’m not -- I wasn’t -- I just wanted to talk to you. I needed--.”   
  
“You need to leave me alone,” she snaps. “Or I’ll send him to the Seam and he’ll--”   
  
“She gets it.”   
  
The voice is familiar. Gruff. She stiffens, and I turn my head to follow her eyes to the speaker.   
  
Oh.   
  
Of course.   
  
Who else would it be?   
  
Gale Hawthorne sits at the bottom step that leads up to the Justice Building. He looks unbothered, but still more intimidating than my brother at his very angriest. He holds a sandwich in one hand, and uses it to gesture loosely towards Clara. She flinches, though there’s nothing aggressive in his posture. 

 

“That husband’s probably expecting you back home soon, huh?” he asks, and she nods jerkily, taking a moment to straighten her skirt and cast one last accusatory glance at me before she starts off towards Town again. Gale watches her go, taking another bite of his lunch, and I close my eyes, trying to will myself to stop existing.   
  
No such luck, of course.   
  
“Hey, kid.” Gale’s voice is obviously directed at me, now. But I don’t open my eyes. “Don’t be afraid,” he says. “I could take him. I’ve got you.”    
  
Now I do crack an eye open. “He won the wrestling tournament three years running,” I say hoarsely.   
  
“Does he carry a knife?” asks Gale, unimpressed.   
  
We’re both surprised by the laugh that rips from me at this. This is more than he said                the whole half-hour or so he spent on the fire escape with me on Saturday. We were silent, other than him saying that Katniss -- _Catnip,_ he calls her -- was going to be upset if I didn’t eat anything.   
  
“I probably ought to get you back home,” he begins, and at my flinch, amends, “Back to the Seam. Before anyone sees you cut class.”   
  
I don’t want to go back to the Seam. He must be able to tell, because he amends,   
  
“Or, uh, back to school, if you prefer. Fuck -- did you eat lunch? What time is it?”   
  
I shake my head, as if that answers any of his questions. “Not your problem, anyway.”   
  
He considers this for a moment and then says, “It’s absolutely my problem. Sorry, kid. Catnip outranks you, and she’d have my head if you got taken in by peacekeepers on my watch.”   
  
He hauls himself up onto his feet -- he towers over me by about a foot and a half once he’s standing beside me, and makes me feel even shorter as he looks me over. And then, wordlessly, he passes me an apple.   
  
“You don’t--” I try to start, but he fixes me with a look that shuts me up. He does have to, apparently. I can’t fathom why Katniss would insist on something like that, though. “Why are you out here anyway?” I ask instead. 

 

“Catnip asked me to sign you up for a bed,” he says. “So I took a half day. C’mon. You can help me make up for lost time.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
He blinks. “If you don’t want to help--”   
  
“No! Just -- I don’t know why she thinks I need a bed. I’m fine. With the dogs. I don’t -- want her to fuss.”   
  
He laughs. “You got a lot to learn, kid,” he says, and I work at not flinching when he slings an arm around my shoulder to pivot me back towards the Seam. “First up: there’s no way to convince Katniss not to fuss.”   


. . . 

  
  


“You weren’t in English,” Katniss accuses instead of greeting me or Gale when we slip through the front door. “I was afraid--” she seems to understand, now, that I was with her fiance. To my surprise, she doesn’t scowl or even seem to get angry, exactly. She just looks at Gale, a little exasperated. He raises his hands, as if in surrender. 

 

“She needed to see that there’s more than the merchant quarter out there,” he defends.   
  
“And you had to show her during school hours?” she asks, frustration finally betraying her tone. She addresses Gale, ignoring me completely, which I don’t think I prefer to being the subject of her anger. “You _know_ they’re looking at me. Making sure I can get Prim to--”   
  
“It’s not his fault,” I interrupt, and they look at me with these mirrored intrigued expressions that might be funny if I wasn’t so filled with dread. “It’s -- I’m --” I stammer, and Gale’s eyebrows lift. 

 

“You remember what I said?” he checks, and I squint. He said, somehow plenty of things and almost nothing when we were out. “When I said, _I’ve got you_?” he stresses. “It’s fine. You’re fine, kid.”   
  
I swallow. He did say that. But I didn’t assume it still applied if Katniss was angry. It’s not that I thought he was lying, exactly, but I certainly didn’t think that my conversation with Clara -- however much he heard of it -- would remain a secret.   
  
“I’m sorry,” I say to Katniss. “I wasn’t -- planning on cutting class. Gale just found me, and I couldn’t go back. I don’t know.”   
  
“Well. As long as he isn’t a bad influence on you,” she says, and Gale acts playfully affronted at this. It’s a stupid, idle thought, but I wonder what it would have been like if I had liked the man I was meant to marry half as much as they like each other. Would I have pushed Clara away, when she came onto me? Or would I have been able to convince my intended, after it all came out, the way she was able to convince my brother?   
  
“I’m a damn good influence, and you know it,” he says. 

  
“Did you at least sign up for the bed?” she asks.  
  


“You know I did,” he says. “Don’t know what’s up with you guys today, not giving me any credit.”   
  
I open my mouth to apologize, but he flashes me a smile that proves he’s kidding, so I shut it.   
  
“Shut up, Hawthorne,” says Katniss. “Peeta, what did you think of the woods?”   
  
“I -- um --” I stammer, feeling caught.  
  
“Was he a dick?” Katniss asks, clearly joking. “Because if he was--”   
  
“Everdeen, if either of us is a dick, it’s not me,” says Gale, coming to stand beside her and using her head as an armrest. They begin to spar at this, and I think maybe that this was included in him saying _I’ve got you_ , earlier. 

 

Still. I know I shouldn’t be stupid enough to trust it. 

 

. . .

**Author's Note:**

> This is a universe I've been playing around in for about two years now, holy shit? Let me know what you think! As per usual for my writing, I am more interested in my character's emotional journeys than I am in outward plot forces, so if you'd like to see anything, I'm amenable. :)


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